The voice came at him from every angle.

'And when will I know that it has begun?'

'It has already begun. Do you not see the signs?'

There are no accidents, thought Stokes. 'Yes, I see the signs. And the Rapture? When will it come.' 'Yes, I see the signs. And the Rapture? When will it come.'

No answer.

Stokes scanned the room. He felt the presence dissipate. Gone.

9.

BOSTON, Ma.s.sACHUSETTS.

The snow was staging an encore as GSC Special Agent Thomas Flaherty turned his '95 Chrysler Concorde off Huntington Avenue on to Museum Road. Rounding the corner, the car caught ice and began to skid. s.h.i.t! His heart went into overdrive. Gripping the steering wheel, he compensated by tugging it hard to the right. Steer into the turn, he told himself. Finally, the tyres caught salt and asphalt and he eased to a stop. He took a moment to catch his breath. Luckily, there'd been no cars in the oncoming lane.

'Okay. Get it together.' He accelerated nice and slow. d.a.m.ned snow, he thought.

The promo banners hanging along the museum's neocla.s.sical cut-granite edifice were dusted with snow, but the words 'Treasures from Mesopotamia, Sept. 21 - January 4' were easy enough for him to make out.

The last time he'd visited the Boston Museum of Fine Arts had been during an eleventh-grade field trip hosted by the Boston Latin School. Not exactly a bragging point. Nowadays it was tough to find time for culture. At least that was the excuse he was going with.

When he steered to the kerb, his front right tyre thumped its way in and out of a pothole hard enough to make his teeth rattle. He rubbed the dashboard affectionately. 'Sorry 'bout that, sweetie,' he told the old war horse. He put the transmission in park, cut the engine.

From the centre console, he grabbed his BlackBerry, punched in the PIN code for his secure e-mail account, and accessed the urgent find-and-deliver order he'd received from Global Security Corporation's Boston office. Only ten minutes ago, he'd received a terse phone call confirming that the museum was the a.s.set's current location.

The woman's profile was a bit lengthy, so he read aloud to himself to drive home the key points: 'Brooke Thompson. Born and raised, Orlando, Florida. Thirty-three. No children. Single ...' He paused and looked back at the attractive photo, trying to reconcile the contradiction. 'Hmm.' Single? Single? He could only a.s.sume that she came with an ex-husband, excessive emotional baggage, two cats and a worn copy of He could only a.s.sume that she came with an ex-husband, excessive emotional baggage, two cats and a worn copy of Twilight Twilight. Otherwise, the facts simply didn't compute.

The highly agreeable face, nonetheless, was easy enough to remember.

He continued down the bulleted list. 'PhD in palaeontology, Boston College ... professor at same ... Middle East antiquities curator, Boston Museum of Fine Arts ... award, award, award ... blah, blah, blah ... lives in the Back Bay on Commonwealth Ave ...' Satisfied, he dropped the BlackBerry into his coat pocket.

Bracing for the cold, he threw open the door on groaning hinges, swung his boots out into the slush, and got out from the car. The chill immediately cut into his bones. One of these days, he might remember to bring along some gloves, maybe a scarf too. If he wasn't a serial bachelor, maybe he'd have someone at home to remind him of these things.

Stuffing his hands into his pockets, he set a brisk pace towards the visitors' entrance.

Inside he headed straight for the admissions desk and discreetly asked the sixty-something female docent with a beehive hairdo where he might find museum staffer, Professor Brooke Thompson.

'You're just in time, she's just gone up to present. Here, take this.' She handed him a glossy programme. Sensing his confusion, she explained, 'Her lecture is simply fascinating. Adorable too, wouldn't you say?' she stage-whispered.

'Uh, yes, a real gem.'

'Just around the corner, in the Remis Auditorium.' She pointed and made a shooing gesture. 'Hurry now.'

Flaherty slipped through the auditorium door and a museum employee immediately came over with a finger pressed against his lip in a hushing gesture. Without a word, he waved for Flaherty to follow him and set off along the auditorium's dimmed rear to the left side aisle. He pointed to an empty end seat six rows down.

Keeping his coat on, Flaherty eased into the seat, surprised that the place was practically filled to capacity. It took some shifting around to get a clear view of the main stage, thanks to the towering guy seated directly in front of him who should have been in the Celtics locker-room at the Fleet Center.

There was a huge viewing screen above the stage that along with the tiered seating made him feel like he'd come to watch an IMAX movie. However, the still image projected on to the screen - some glossy brownish skull with a heavy brow ridge, maybe ape, maybe primitive human - wasn't exactly blockbuster material.

When Flaherty's gaze finally settled on the lecturer whose sultry voice b.u.t.tered the sound system, his eyebrows went up.

'Whoa!' he exclaimed to himself.

Roaming freely in front of the stage's central podium, clicker in her hand, clip-on microphone wired to the lapel of a form-fitting navy pants suit, was Professor Brooke Thompson. What he'd seen of her on the BlackBerry was only a headshot that showed wavy hair shaped to the shoulder, a long graceful neck and a face straight off a magazine cover. The complete picture was far more impressive. She seemed taller than the five-nine indicated in her profile, lithe with a perfect blend of tight curves that suggested a conscientious diet and rigid fitness regimen. Certainly helped explain the predominantly male turnout, he thought, glancing once again at the attendees.

Finally he began to focus on what she was saying. And once again, he was impressed. Brooke Thompson was an engaging speaker. Though Flaherty thought he wouldn't give a rat's a.s.s about the seemingly arcane topic - listed on the programme as 'Mesopotamia and the Origins of Written Language' - she immediately hooked him.

10.

'So it's around 10,000 years ago,' Brooke Thompson went on, 'when the most recent Ice Age finally comes to a close. The ma.s.sive glacial sheets retreat to uncover the land, while the rapid melt-off causes a dramatic rise in sea levels. The most recent cycle of global warming, not attributable to emissions from SUVs and coal-burning power plants.'

Some chuckles from the audience.

'The Neanderthals had long since vanished' - she pointed up to the skull still showing on the big screen - 'whether due to a turf war with early humans, or, as some scientists have suggested, genetic dilution through inbreeding with h.o.m.o sapiens h.o.m.o sapiens. By 6000 BC, modern humans are thriving. They domesticate livestock for food, milk and clothing. They plant seeds along the fertile river banks to grow their own food. They are the world's first farmers. Around 5500 BC they begin to irrigate the land with ca.n.a.ls and ditches, allowing them to spread from the fertile north, to the arid south. For the first time in history, our great ancestors rely less on migratory hunting and become sedentary. This agricultural revolution sp.a.w.ns large organized settlements throughout the Middle East in modern Egypt, Israel, Syria and Iraq - a region referred to as the Fertile Crescent, or the Cradle of Civilization.'

She pointed the clicker and the projector brought up a detailed map centred on the Middle East.

'Surplus foods allow extensive trading over wide areas, while specialization of labour fosters hyper-speed technology. To manage this new way of life, industrious humans develop a systematic means of communication that doesn't rely on memory or oral transference. They are to become the world's first bureaucrats. Enter the first written language. Which leads us to the epicentre of it all - right here ...'

Brooke used the clicker's laser pointer to place a bright red dot at the map's centre, just north of the modern Persian Gulf.

'Here is where archaeologists have unearthed the ruins of the world's earliest hierarchical societies. This once lush and peaceful paradise was known as the "land between two rivers", or "Mesopotamia". Hard to imagine since today it is a war-torn nation known as Iraq.'

Some quiet chatter rippled through the crowd.

'Now I'd like to focus on how written language enabled these early civilizations to develop first into agricultural cities with tens of thousands of citizens, then city states hundreds of thousands strong, and eventually ... empires stretching across Eurasia.'

Scanning the sea of faces that filled the auditorium, Brooke focused on the intent smiles and nodding heads, blocked out the few sceptical scowls. The recent articles she'd published in the American Journal of Archaeology American Journal of Archaeology on the emergence of written language, which not-so-subtly challenged the archaeological establishment, had lured a number of detractors here today. Best to know your enemies, she thought. on the emergence of written language, which not-so-subtly challenged the archaeological establishment, had lured a number of detractors here today. Best to know your enemies, she thought.

'The earliest known written communication dates to around 3500 BC.'

Brooke hated snubbing the real real truth about the ancient writings she'd uncovered in Iraq only a few years ago - the truth that would upend every established theory about the emergence of Mesopotamian culture; the discovery of an ancient language that would push back the timeline by at least five centuries. But she'd signed an airtight confidentiality agreement with that project's benefactor. truth about the ancient writings she'd uncovered in Iraq only a few years ago - the truth that would upend every established theory about the emergence of Mesopotamian culture; the discovery of an ancient language that would push back the timeline by at least five centuries. But she'd signed an airtight confidentiality agreement with that project's benefactor.

Taking a five-second break to sip some water helped her to fight the compulsion to scream out a p.r.o.nouncement that would amount to career suicide. Any one of the faces staring back at her from the audience might be linked to that benefactor, she reminded herself. Someone out there is hanging on my every word.

If only she could tell the world how irrefutable evidence showed that around 4000 BC a cataclysm took place in northern Mesopotamia - an event so profound that progress and humankind itself were thrown back in time, forced to start anew. The first Dark Ages.

But instead, she forged on with the story that her esteemed colleagues expected.

'Around 3500 BC, the Mesopotamian elite began using stamped seals to identify their property. A mark of ownership. Here you have a typical cylinder seal,' she said, pointing the clicker to advance to the next image - a small stone tube covered in geometric depressions. 'Cylinders like this would be rolled on to a wet clay slab to leave artful impressions and picture stories. Fast-forward to 3000 BC and we find that scribes then begin pressing into these damp clay tablets with reeds, or stones chips, or other instruments, to create pictographs and hashes representing numbers. Our first accountants and tax collectors.'

The next slide showed an oblong clay tablet delineated into rows of boxes, which were filled with simple representations of animals. The pictographs were beset by vertical lines bisected with numerous cross hashes to resemble overlapping Ts .

'Here is a fantastic specimen that shows how the oldest Mesopotamian civilization, the Sumerians, tallied food supplies. This mushroom-shaped symbol here represents a cow ...' she indicated it with the laser pointer, '... and here we have the head count.' She moved the dot slightly up and to the left to indicate symbols that looked like sideways Vs. 'At first, these simple clay tablets were left to dry in the sun. As such, few of the earliest examples remain, since over time moisture and the elements took their toll on the clay - disintegrated the tablets. Eventually, however, the scribes learned that if the finished tablets were baked at a high temperature, the record would be virtually indestructible - permanent. It's worth noting that this same technological advance was also applied to mud brick so that the ancients could construct grander, more permanent architectural structures.'

For the next few minutes, she elaborated on a series of slides that showed a steady 2,000-year evolution from crude pictographs to schematic wedge-shaped forms called cuneiform - a slow march towards standard word symbols that borrowed and refined the old elements. Next came pictures of various artifacts that chronicled 3,000 years when cuneiform reigned supreme: a clay tablet from 2300 BC Akkad which tallied barley rations; an elaborate cylinder seal whose impressions depicted the Mesopotamian pantheon of G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses alongside narrative inscriptions; a clay 'letter' circa 1350 BC sent by the Babylonian king Burnaburiash to an Egyptian pharaoh; a stela from 860 BC, depicting the a.s.syrian king, Ashurnasirpal II, in full royal dress, covered in neat rows of cuneiform; an inscribed Babylonian world map from 600 BC; an elaborate clay cylinder excavated from the palace wall of Nebuchadnezzar II.

'It wasn't long before writing was used to record legends and mythology. Thousands of years before Adam and Eve appear in the Hebrew book of Genesis, Mesopotamian creation myths - the world's first true literature - featured a garden paradise, a tree of knowledge and humanity's first man and woman. Long before Noah's great flood, a cuneiform epic written in clay around 2700 BC tells the story of the Babylonian hero Gilgamesh, who'd built a boat to escape a cataclysmic flood. The tower of Babel is based on a magnificent temple pyramid in Ur - the ziggurat. And in 2100 BC Abraham leaves Ur to become the Old Testament patriarch, founder of monotheism and progenitor of the twelve tribes of Israel.'

She noticed that the few scowling faces in the audience looked visibly relieved, leading her to conclude that they found her delicate tip-toeing through the material agreeable.

'From these primitive languages emerge the early Semitic languages: a.s.syrian, Aramaic, Hebrew. Then come Greek, Latin, the Romance languages and English,' she said. 'Not until the Macedonian army led by Alexander the Great conquered Mesopotamia and Persia around 325 BC did cuneiform begin its rapid decline,' Brooke said. 'So be sure to visit the gallery and enjoy this most incredible exhibit - a true time capsule of human history written in clay.'

11.

In a wide stance with his winter coat folded over a crooked arm, Agent Thomas Flaherty stood stage-left, patiently waiting for the last fans queued along the auditorium's main aisle to have Professor Thompson autograph a copy of her latest book, Mesopotamia Mesopotamia - - Empires of Clay Empires of Clay. He couldn't help but smile as he watched the left-handed palaeolinguist grip the pen in a tight hook and press her face close to the page while scrawling personalized messages and a swooping autograph.

Flaherty carefully observed how she interacted with her admirers. A self-proclaimed master of character a.s.sessment - partly resultant from his undergrad psychology minor at Boston College - Flaherty decided that her endearing charm seemed genuine. No narcissism here. There was an air of innocence and vulnerability about her too, he decided.

Fifteen minutes later, the final fans dallied out from the auditorium and the professor sat back to flex the fingers on her left hand.

Flaherty moved in, saying, 'And I thought the Middle East was all about oil.'

Brooke smiled courteously.

'Really enjoyed your lecture,' Flaherty said. 'You know your stuff. And you actually make it interesting. Too bad I didn't have more professors like you when I was at B-C.'

'Ah, a fellow alumni. What year did you graduate?'

'A couple years ahead of you. Ninety-five. Took an extra term, but got it done.'

'Congratulations.'

'Thanks. Made the parents proud.'

'I'm sure you did.'

Sensing by her reserved expression that he was flirting with being pegged as creepy, he reached into his pocket for his credentials and skipped to the formal introduction: 'Special Agent Thomas Flaherty, Global Security Corp.' He flashed the ID. 'I know this isn't the best time, but I need to ask you some questions about your work in Iraq back in 2003.'

'Let me see that,' she said, motioning for his ID.

He gave it to her.

Brooke closely studied the laminated card: the data, the agency's sleek holographic imprint, the not-so-flattering photo of Agent Flaherty before he'd shaved away an unruly goatee. Then she pa.s.sed it back to him. 'Never heard of Global Security Corporation.'

He kept it simple by replying, 'We work for the Department of Defense.'

'Sounds very official,' she said. 'So what can I do for you?'

'Actually, this might take a while. Maybe I can buy you a coffee in the cafe downstairs?'

'All right,' she said. 'But tea. Green tea.'

12.

IRAQ.

Jason used his binoculars to survey the approaching military convoy. With all the dust being kicked up, he wondered why they even bothered painting the vehicles in desert camouflage paint.

The lead vehicle was a six-wheeled, twenty-ton behemoth with a V-hull - a Mine Resistant Ambush Protected armoured transport, or MRAP. Affixed to its front end was a huge mine roller that sc.r.a.ped the ground to pre-detonate any pressure-triggered improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, that might be buried in the roadway. To Jason, the apparatus looked more like a colossal paint roller or something that might be used to flatten asphalt. On the MRAP's roof, he could make out a telescoping optics mast - infrared, heat sensors, the works. He suspected it had been retrofitted with metal detectors and radio frequency jamming equipment too.

Trailing like ducklings behind the MRAP were five flat-bellied Humvees.

He spied the Blackhawk again. Its side doors were open. Besides the pilot and copilot, he spied six marines inside the fuselage.

A conservative tabulation meant that twenty-five to thirty jar-heads would be arriving in the next five minutes. Marines weren't always keen on cooperating with contractors. But circ.u.mstance dictated that a team effort would be critical to getting into that cave ... and fast. Play nice, an inner voice told Jason.

'Hey, Meat,' Jason called out.

'Yo.'

'Print out those pictures, p.r.o.nto. I need to send Hazo on a field trip.'

'I'm on it.'

Hazo came over with a nervous look on his face. 'Field trip?'

'You know the locals,' Jason explained. 'I want you to take those pictures with you, show them around, figure out what those images on the wall can tell us. And I want you to see if anyone knows this woman whose ID we found melted to that door. No way she was here alone.'

Tentative, Hazo nodded. 'I understand.'

'Good. And don't be long. I'm going to need your help here.'